Top Five Must-See Phoenix Shows This Weekend

Fairly Odd Folk is both a Nickelodeon reference (?) and an extremely accurate bit of self-evaluation: Lauren Mann's music is kind-of weird folk. It's mostly just extremely competent folk-pop of the variety that's all over the radio right now.

The fairly odd thing is that it stands out from an increasingly crowded field of doorbells-and-acoustic-guitar aspirants for reasons that aren't immediately obvious. There's no clear hook, no easy explanation for why their songs will stick in your head after everybody else's sound has been fully subsumed by whimsical car commercials -- it just happens.

It feels sweated over -- worked on -- in a way that a lot of this stuff doesn't. And that's enough; not everybody has to be Extremely Odd.